Life On a Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

Female wood duck earlier in the year, sans ducklings

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My theory was that the wood ducks were molting, that is, losing their flight feathers, and could not fly. When I walked out on my dock for a late-night bit of flycasting to smutting trout, there often was a matched pair of woodies on the edge of the lake, but they would not fly off, as they always did of old, but swam swiftly away, the hen protesting audibly in a squeak/squawk.

Today the dogs sat pointed out the lower screen door, very attentive. So my eyes followed their eyes. A female with eleven (rough, quick count) ducklings, all fuzzy and round, and in tight protective formation, followed her lead, almost as one. I called out to Norma to come see. And she caught the sight as they disappeared into the sedges.

Perhaps my original theory was right, then. The wood ducks are molted, and what better time to be unable to fly than when they have a defenseless brood nearly under-wing.

They couldn't possibly abandon them to fly away for self-protection. No, that isn't what this breeding game is all about.

Lake Ketchum at dusk

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Trout fishing has slowed slightly, but is still good, for bait and troll. The crowds are beginning to disperse slightly.

My favorite time of day is at the approach of full dark, when the trout begin to "smut," as the English call it, which  means they slurp along just under the surface taking spent insects, or emerging ones (hard to tell which), and betray their presence by leaving a series of rings on the surface. Often these are big, tantalizing splashes.

I cast to them, from the end of my dock, trying to place the (current favorite) #14 Prince nymph  just ahead of the rise, then retrieve it with a smooth, fast action. Often, no resulting strike. But then, every so often, the trout  nails it. More often, though, I feel a faint pluck, miss the fish when I strike back, and know in my heart that that particular fish will strike no more tonight.

This bit of action takes place just as the Mariners (losers that they are, this year) enter the fourth inning, usually tied or one run behind. I sacrifice an inning or two for the fishing. On a good night I will hook and land three nice, scrappy trout, missing another dozen more. On a slow night, but one fish hooked and landed. And there are some nights when I don't land any, and cast into the gathering darkness frantically, while the swallows disappear from their insect feeding, are replaced by nightjars, then by bats.

I think there are times when I cast to a seeming trout ringing the surface, but it is only a bat nicking the water catching a midge fly. And--knowing better--I keep casting, hoping for the redeeming trout, which invariably fights furiously, with many a jump, and gets ceremoniously and satisfyingly released back into his environment.

Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear fly

305

It was a fly hook very much like this one, but I had attempted to debarb it, apparently unsuccessfully, for I drove it into the end of my first finger, with a sharp stab. Of course I went to pull it out, knowing all the while the barb stubb had caught, which it had.

So I cut it off my leader and gathered up a few random implements I hoped would be surgically useful, and shouted  for my wife to come, give me a hand. And then it dawned on me a simple trick I had read about, over and over again, all my life:

You take some surgical sutures and loop them around the bend of the hook; then you push down on the eye of the hook and lift up sharply and undeniably. The hook pops right out.

Yeah!

Among my tools were some small needle-nosed piers. Just in case.

My wife approached and the phone rang. She got it. I dashed to the basement, holding my wounded paw in the air.

Where would I find sutures, or their equivalent? I thought of flyreel backing. But most of my flyreels were full of casting lines. I found one quickly, however, cut off some of the 30-lb dacron backing, and hurried upstairs. My wife was just getting off the phone.

I explained the untried, famous suture technique to her. She listened to me with her sweet little upturned face. She nodded comprehension. I  handed her the makeshift sutures. She picked up the needlenosed pliers.

I looked at her incredulously.

"What are the pliers for?" I asked nicely.

"To remove the hook," she replied.

"No, no," I argued. "We are going to use the suture technique." Thought of the pliers made me weak in the knees.

I again (very patiently, I thought) explained the suture technique. She looked doubtful. I explained it for the third time.

"You sure it will work?" she asked.

"Put down the pliers," I suggested.

She did, and we executed the famous untried plan. It was I who pushed down on the eye of the upturned hook, she who held the strings.

Twice I repositioned the two sutures until they were pointing straight up in the air, and not backward.

"Ready?" I asked. I pressed down. "Now, jerk."

She did and the hook came out cleanly, with no pain at all. Effortlessly. I squeezed the tiny hole until a drop of blood appeared. I did it again.

All done, and how simple it was. Why had I even worried?

Robert Arnold, Editor
rcarnold@direcway.com